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8. Rays of Hope, Idealism, and Beauty in 20th Century Painting


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In the 20th century most figurative painters simply saw no reason to depict anything else.

Only in the works of the later Picabia (his transparency paintings); the later Matisse (his papier-collé cut-outs); Marc Chagall; perhaps Sandro Chia; and perhaps in the more "joyful" figurative Pop Art of Tom Wesselman, David Hockney, or Sigmar Polke, do we experience something different. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Picabia , francis picabia les transparencies , http://www.wikiart.org/en/francis-p...gn=referral#supersized-artistPaintings-236764 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUqn4G_HAQs , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jJRIeUy758 , and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqylqMVTZyo ; http://www.henri-matisse.net/cut_outs.html , matisse papier collé cutouts , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Chagall , http://en.musees-nationaux-alpesmaritimes.fr/chagall/node/55 , http://thejewishmuseum.org/search?keywords=chagall , https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandro_Chia , http://www.sandrochia.com/artwork_111 , sandro chia , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Wesselmann , http://tomwesselmannestate.org/60.html , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmar_Polke , sigmar polke , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hockney , david hockney portraits , and david hockney paintings swimming pools :



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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xtFAIMpFdc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sS2av7z7ofs


One could probably add Gustav Klimt to this very short list, except that Klimt is really a late 19-century symbolist painter, and not truly a painter of the 20th century -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Klimt and Gustav Klimt .

By way of contrast, it was relatively easy in the 20th century to maintain an art practice committed to beauty and the ethereal as an abstract painter. Even in the late 20th century new and interesting abstract painters continued to emerge, creating work that is decidedly more optimistic, full of color and hope, than anything produced by most figurative artists. Here I am thinking of late 20th century abstract artists as diverse as Brice Madden, Peter Halley, and Ross Bleckner -- see Brice Madden , Peter Halley , Ross Bleckner (paintings) , and //www.rbleckner.com/images.html?menu=PAINTINGS .

Most of the idealism in 20th century Art seems to have gone into geometric abstraction, expressionist abstraction, and lyrical abstraction, from Kandinksy and Mondrian to Helen Frankenthaler, and beyond. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassily_Kandinsky , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet_Mondrian , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Frankenthaler , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_art , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_abstraction , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_expressionism , and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyrical_abstraction :



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Frankthaler is probably the most under-appreciated artist of the Ab-Ex movement; for a large gallery of her work (140 images), see http://www.wikiart.org/en/helen-fra...gn=referral#supersized-artistPaintings-284228 .


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Although my deepest personal preference is for work that has figurative content, I should emphasize that I really like and admire a wide range of 20th century artistic innovations and experiments; abstract painting especially, because typically it is so playful, created in a spirit of joy. Even though I am a trained figurative painter, and even though I love the classical figurative tradition, my "taste" in Art is very broad. For instance, I love more or less everything that Kandinsky painted, early, middle, and late:


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I've always been a big fan of Mondrian's work, as well as the more dynamic Russian constructivist paintings of El Lissitzky (constructivism):


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So too, I love the curvilinear paintings of early Francis Picabia (orphism), and Robert and Sonia Delaunay (orphism) :


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I am a great fan of the geometric abstraction of Sophie Taeuber Arp:


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I love Rothko's color field paintings, as well as Frank Stella's protractor paintings:


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I love German expressionism when it is more technically competent, as per Ludwig Kirchner's "Davos in Winter":


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I also admire the early Berlin Dada experiments of Hannah Hoch (collage), Kurt Schwitters, and Raoul Haussman:


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And John Heartfield's anti-Nazi photo-collages are probably the finest examples of politically committed art ever created, even if they had no immediate effect:



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Indeed, the only real problem I have with such politically committed work, is precisely that it is almost always ineffective. Although Artists who produce politically “committed” work profess an intense desire to change the world, almost always their Art proves completely ineffective in practice, as political critique. You would think this might have occurred to them before they embarked on a career in the Fine Arts?!? John Heartfield's anti-Hitler photo-collages pumped out in the 1930's are a case in point. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Heartfield , http://www.johnheartfield.com/HTML/heartfield_Artist_Political_ART.html , http://www.johnheartfield.com/HTML/john_heartfield_montageBludIron98.html , and http://www.johnheartfield.com/HTML/john_heartfield_montageAdolphSuperman94.html . Heartfield's photo-collages are some of the most powerful, visually arresting, and emotionally convincing works of political Art ever produced. And yet Heartfield's photo-collages had absolutely zero impact on Hitler's rise to power. Along similar lines, Goya's “disasters of war” print-series, or the anti-war paintings of Otto Dix and Georg Grosz, have done nothing to convince anyone that war is hell, and should be avoided at all costs.

Often enough “critical” Art backfires, inadvertently aestheticizing and rendering acceptable precisely that which it sought to attack. Francis Ford Coppola's films are notorious in this regard. Coppola intended The Godfather trilogy as a critique of American capitalism, but instead, he only succeeded in romanticizing the mafia further. After the first movie appeared, mobsters themselves began copying Marlon Brando's speech patterns, as demonstrated by before/after FBI wiretap recordings. Similarly, the helicopter-attack scene in Heart of Darkness, intended as a critique of unprovoked, obscene, utterly gratuitous American military violence, is now used by the American military to whip up troop morale prior to major offensives.

But at least Coppola's films, Heartfield's collages, and Goya's prints are beautiful; which is more than one can say for the vast bulk of explicitly “political” or “committed” contemporary Art. Usually such Art fails both visually and politically, both as Art and as political critique. Nowadays, whenever I experience such art, I wonder whether the artists who produce it might have missed their true callings as social activists, lawyers, or politicians?

To state a rather obvious point: paintings, photographs, sculptures, video installations, and even movies, are usually very weak vectors for political agency. There are many more effective, more potent ways to change the world. And I say this as a center-left, thoroughly committed social-democrat, of the continental European kind.




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9. Hope, Idealism, and Beauty in 20th Century Sculpture


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Turning to 20th century sculpture, even though I prefer things more curvilinear, I still very much admire Donald Judd's minimalist cubes created in the 1960's -- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Judd :



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Richard Serra's sculptures in Bilbao, permanently installed in Frank Gehry's masterpiece, the Guggenheim Art museum in Spain, are astonishing:


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I also love the neon-light sculptures of Dan Flavin, perhaps the best collection of which can be found in the Panza Museum outside Varese:


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And so too I love the mystical "light installations" of James Turrell, a few of which can also be found at the Panza -- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Turrell :




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Dan Graham's glass sculpture-installations are ethereal, and Tony Cragg's biomorphic sculptures are mesmerizing:


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Biomorphic british sculpture in general is a wonder, particularly the non-figurative sculpture of Henry Moore (non-representational sculpture):


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Throughout the thread I've signaled my enthusiasm for all things biomorphic, and British modernist architecture in particular. See.....

In the world of digital art, Bill Viola's video work is sublime, impossible to convey in still images. One has to experience Viola's video installations in person to understand why they are so loved by both critics and the general public alike. But in lieu of that, here are a few videos circulating on the web:



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I am even enthusiastic about some varieties of more "conceptual" art, especially Italian Arte Povera, as exemplified by the work Giuseppe Penone (opera):


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The only 20th century work that I do not like, is (1) most surrealist painting, even though it has figurative content; (2) I really dislike the work of Joseph Beuys (sculpture), even though he is considered important by the German art world; (3) I am not a great fan of Andy Warhol; and (4) the more "verbal", almost ant-visual forms of conceptual art leave me stone cold, especially the work of Joseph Kosuth. I am also not a great fan of much of the artwork produced by the "YBA" movement (Young British Artists), because much of it is derivative, and in most work (e.g. Jake and Dinos Chapman , Marc Quinn (****head) , Tracey Emin (work) ) there is an underlying tone of British jokey-dark-cynicism that positively revels in every form of perversion.

Mind you, even here, I admire some of the work of Rachel Whiteread (chair), and most of the work of Anthony Gormley (black lead figures), especially the earlier stuff, and the drawings -- see http://www.antonygormley.com/sculpture/chronology and http://www.antonygormley.com/drawing/series :


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I only draw the line at "conceptual Art" that is so heavy on words, ideology, and concept, and so weak visually, that it seems just stupid to call it visual Art. But contemporary art that is very conceptual, and yet still also strongly visual -- I have no problem with that.

Indeed, I am probably even more progressive in my artistic taste than those who are a bit older, now in their 50's or 60's, because older artists and Art Historians tend to dislike the work of Damien Hirst -- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damien_Hirst , http://www.damienhirst.com , http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/damien-hirst , and http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/damien-hirst-2308 :


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They tend to see Hirst as just a cynical opportunist, out just to make money with his Art by any means necessary. And indeed, Hirst is a very successful artist who has become quite rich; his personal fortune is now estimated at over 200 million USD. But even still, I think there is more going on in Hirst's Art than just greedy opportunism. The cut-off point for many older Art Historians seems to be 1980 or thereabouts, with the work of Beuys. Whereas on my own view, the conceptual installations that Hirst has produced are ten times more visually interesting than anything that Beuys ever did.

Beuys had this mumbo-jumbo "shaman-magician-artist" "alchemist-sculptor" public-relations schtick going down. Beuys spun a web of personal mythology that many yearning for "spiritually significant art" naively bought into, hook, line, and sinker -- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Beuys , http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/joseph-beuys-747 , and http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/joseph-beuys-actions-vitrines-environments . And so, because Joseph Beuys claimed to be an ever-so-serious, vaguely "spiritual" sort of conceptual artist, the rhetoric goes that we should take Beuys and his art seriously. Whereas Damien Hirst is decidedly a prankster and a bit of a hooligan, Hirst has a great sense of humor, Hirst doesn't take himself so seriously, and Hirst is happy to make money with his Art. Ergo, Hirst is supposedly not as "important" an artist as Beuys.

This is complete nonsense.

Personally, I actually like the fact that Hirst does not take himself so seriously, and that he is not so pretentious about his Art. And for anyone who has even an ounce of visual sensibility, there is a purely visual appeal and strength in Hirst's work, that is simply lacking in Beuys. Beuys' work has always struck me as just an assemblage of objects found in a junk yard, and Beuys' work is always so brown, grey, and dirty looking. Some might claim that Beuys' work has an "organic" sort of beauty. But if so, it's the kind of organic beauty that only a granola-munching eco-hippie could appreciate. I'm of a different generation, I was born after the baby-boom, and by the time I got to college, the hippie movement in the United States was thoroughly dead. As already made clear in the thread, I still admire and embrace certain hippie ideals (universal human rights, global solidarity, global peace, universal love), but the anti-modernist, anti-technological, "back to the land" agriculturism embraced by some hippies I can do without.


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15. Learning from the Ancients


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In the other direction temporally speaking, as already suggested I am a great fan of Greek and Roman sculpture :









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16. The Nike of Brixia


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When it comes to "heroic semi-nudity", by far my favorite Graeco-Roman sculpture of all time is a bronze statue of "Winged Victory", housed in the Museo Santa Giulia in Brescia -- see http://www.bresciamusei.com/santagiulia.asp , and http://www.bresciamusei.com/nsantagiulia.asp?nm=10&t=Masterpieces.+The+Winged+Victory . Ancient bronze statues are comparatively rare to begin with, because the bronze has long-since been melted down to create other things. This particular statue was found buried in a hidden space between two walls at the back of Brescia's Capitolium (the ancient Romans called the city "Brixia"), along with six bronze busts, when excavations were carried out in 1826 -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brescia . Skip ahead 27 minutes into the first video:






One of the reasons why I admire this statue so much, is that, apart from her obvious beauty and sculptural excellence, she is relatively unknown outside Italy. When she was first discovered, word spread throughout Europe and the United States. But since then it seems that she has been forgotten. Although Brescia is a lovely and very prosperous Italian city, and home to Beretta as well as a number of other successful Italian industrial concerns, it's not exactly on most standard tourist itineraries. So most Anglophonic Art History textbooks will not mention the "Nike of Brixia", Brescia's Winged Victory, even though she deserves a place in all standard Art History textbooks, right beside discussion of the "Nike of Samothrace" in the Louvre. Brixia's Nike is much more complete than the Nike of Samothrace, and she's in bronze.

Even Wikipedia only has an entry about her in Italian, not in English -- see https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vittoria_alata_di_Brescia , https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Winged_victory_(Brescia)?uselang=it , https://translate.google.co.uk/tran....wikipedia.org/wiki/Vittoria_alata_di_Brescia , https://translate.google.co.uk/tran.../wiki/Bronzi_romani_del_Capitolium_di_Brescia , and https://translate.google.co.uk/tran...ia.org/wiki/Category:Winged_victory_(Brescia) . For more discussion, also see https://translate.google.co.uk/tran....it/engramma_v4/rivista/saggio/25/saggio.html, https://translate.google.co.uk/tran...o.com/Curioso ritrovamento Vittoria Alata.htm, and https://translate.google.co.uk/tran...a_v4/rivista/saggio/41/041_bonoldi_venus.html . Most of the images that follow below are from the Italian Wikipedia Commons, but some of them are also my own. For a while it was difficult to find any information or images about this extraordinary statue on the web, even in Italian, so many years ago I took a complete set of HD photographs with a Nikon digital SLR:


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Here is a photo of the description in the museum:


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This is a bronze copy, now at Hearst Castle in California. The Nike's left foot is standing on the helmet of Mars (the God of War), thereby further signifying victory. But she's not holding the shield that it's thought she possessed:



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The following are full reconstructions. Archeologists and Art historians think that the Nike was writing the name of a benefactor or protector of Brixia on a shield. In the Italian video on the previous page that describes the sculpture in detail, the Professoressa speculates that the Nike was probably installed in the reign of Vespasian, hence, she may have been writing Vespasian's name on the shield:



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These last four images are of a bronze copy and reconstruction now in the Louvre, completed in 1861, when Brescia offered molds of the statue to Napoleon III in gratitude after the Battle of Solferino (1851), a critical battle in the struggle for Italian unification -- see http://cartelfr.louvre.fr/cartelfr/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=20016:



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This French copy lacks the detailed subtlety of the original, but it too provides a good idea of what the Nike might have looked like when standing in Brixia's forum.


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Moving forwards in time, I grealy admire Michelangelo (Sistine ceiling sibyls), but not quite as much as I love the Venetian color of Titian (narrative allegorical paintings and altarpieces) and Veronese:



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Velazquez (narrative paintings) is the ultimate "painter's painter", although for shear painterly spontaneity and bravura, the late-Baroque work of Fragonard and Tiepolo are also inspiring



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18. Why has "Virtue Figuration" disappeared? Did the rise of the Bourgeoisie kill it?


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After Tiepolo, the French Revolution happened, the bourgeoisie instead of the aristocracy began to run things, Science emerged as a powerful cultural force and sensibility, and the heroic/idealistic vision of human potential disappeared as a theme in figurative painting. Making a case for the revival of idealistic figurative art – albeit "Virtue Figuration" of a non-programmatic, open, and non-ideological kind – should not prove too difficult or surprising. The more difficult challenge Art-historical explanation: explaining why Virtue Figuration died out in the first place.

In a sense we really have two questions here.

The first is a question about form: Why did a certain kind of Classical figurative training that had served artists well for centuries, a training that emphasized Life-drawing and Life-painting almost disappear? In post #2481 at http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...w-6x6-Hybrid-Drivetrain?p=2021779#post2021779 , section 3, I explored a number of possible answers to this question, reasons why Fine Arts departments stopped teaching courses in observational drawing and painting, and especially Fine Arts departments housed in Universities. Furthermore, I have argued that rigorous Visual training never really went out of fashion, it just changed venue. Most of the students attending "Art School" today study one of the design professions, not the Fire Arts. And in the design professions visual skill has remained paramount, especially excellence in free-hand drawing.

The second question is about content: Whey did subject matter shift so markedly from roughly 1800 onwards? Why do prominent, successful contemporary figurative artists no longer paint Madonnas and Saints, Angels and Athletes, Heroes and Martyrs? The two questions can be stated and treated separately, but one suspects they are deeply intertwined.

In a very long email exchange some friends and I tried to come to grips with the second question, but quite honestly, we did not get very far. In this posting series I've hinted at one possible, rather simplistic answer to the question: the haute-bourgeoisie did it. An initial and very obvious answer is that the French Revolution, the rise of the bourgeoisie, and the gradual secularization of society in the 19th century made it no longer possible for artists to continue depicting humanity ennobled. Such depictions began to seem sentimental and “kitsch,” in an era when the dominant sensibility – across all of the Arts including literature – was a cynical, knowing, skeptical Realism. As examples of Realism in literature, one might cite Flaubert's Madame Bovery, or Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_Bovary and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Naked_and_the_Dead .

After all – this line of reasoning would insist – the bourgeoisie are mere merchants, natural-born hedonists mired in the world of manufacture and trade, mired in the ignoble activities of having and getting. So Art produced in an era of bourgeois ascendancy will necessarily be anti-heroic and cynically realistic, because the bourgeois class is the same. A deflationary, anti-humanist, materialistic figurative Art that reduces humans to the status of spiritually eviscerated objects, is perhaps precisely the figurative Art that the haute-bourgeoisie deserves. Perhaps only an aristocratic age can produce idealistic art that finds beauty and nobility in the concretely tangible? In human corporeality especially? Tiepolo then becomes the last great religious painter, and the last painter to depict the apotheoses of aristocrats. Goya is the lynchpin figure in this explanation, the last of the baroque painters, and the first truly modern painter, the first to paint and draw humanity ugly: humanity spiritually eviscerated, dark, mean, and completely without redemption. After Goya, and mainly because of Courbet, in the 19th century "Realism" becomes the dominant chord of serious artistic sensibility in figurative painting, and remains so to this day.

The two questions might then be linked, because one could argue that as an interest in humanity wanes, so too does an interest in Life. If humans are no longer worth depicting, because we no longer believe in their transcendental capacities, then classes in Life-drawing or Life-painting come to seem pointless. And if we judge humans so poorly, our enthusiasm for other features of the human condition also evaporates, including our enthusiasm for the natural world that we inhabit. Ergo, even Landscape painting dries up as a tradition, and classes in Landscape painting or Still-Life come to seem equally pointless. All that remains is enthusiasm for Art itself. We then get Art that's only about Art, and no longer about Life.

The same process occurred in sculpture, just more slowly. And not just in painting and sculpture. Artistically "serious" film also aspires to a tone of dark, cynical realism, as per The Godfather or Citizen Cane. Why it is more "realistic" to depict human beings as fallible and corruptible, instead of potentially noble and heroic, has always escaped me. And why beauty and transcendence in 20th century Art seems mostly manifest in abstract work, also puzzles me. In the 19th and 20th centuries some kind of disconnect or rupture seems to have occurred, separating the ideal from the real, the spiritual from the concrete, the conceptual from the actual.



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19. Why has "Virtue Figuration" disappeared? Did Napoleon kill it, or Protestant audio-centric iconoclasm?


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Slick and compact as the explanation above might be, I've lived far too long in continental Europe to take think it sufficient. In Italy the line between aristocrats and the haute-bourgeoisie has always proven desperately thin: in Venice, for instance, the aristocracy was simultaneously the merchant class. Going back further, it was originally Athens that gave birth to mimetic-idealistic figuration, and Athens (in contrast to Sparta) was decidedly a commercial city-state, whose livelihood depended on a maritime trading empire. To be sure, Athens did have its aristocrats, like Plato. But about the same time that Athens invented mimetic-idealistic figuration, Athens invented democracy. So the “blame the bourgeoisie” explanation won't suffice.

So at a more concrete, historical level, as suggested earlier perhaps Napoleon is to blame. Napoleon's armies shut down countless religious orders and monasteries, and for centuries these had functioned as the primary patrons of multi-figure, heroically idealistic painting in the grand style. After Napoleon was overthrown and the aristocracy reinstated, most orders and monasteries still found it difficult to re-establish themselves. Indeed, in Italy during the Risorgimento religious orders and monasteries were aggressively suppressed for a second time. Now if one reads Napoleon or Garibaldi's Nationalism as bourgeois phenomena, then we are back to the “blame the bourgeoisie” explanation. And again we run up against counter-examples of figure-loving, thoroughly bourgeois societies like Classical Athens and Renaissance Venice.

Some say that the culprit is the "Protestantizatoin" of Art: what had formerly been a visual-tactile Catholic western-European art tradition centered on Italy and Paris, unfortunately became a Protestant auditory-verbal tradition with centers in Berlin, London, and New York. There is even one Art Historian who has made a bit of a career out of this argument -- see Eleanor Heartney, at http://www.amazon.com/Postmodern-Heretics-Catholic-Imagination-Contemporary/dp/1877675504.

This argument has a certain plausibility, because historically speaking many forms of Protestantism have not been exactly friendly towards the visual Arts. During the Reformation it's a simple fact that in many parts of Europe, literally thousands of paintings were burnt by Protestants, and thousands of sculptures smashed. One British music teacher I once worked with related how under Cromwell things got so bad, that even chords were outlawed in church Music, and only the most stupid-simple melodies could be sung. He thinks that England's tradition of classical music never fully recovered from the Reformation, and that's why England has only produced one classical composer worthy of note, namely, Elgar -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Elgar . I can't really comment at length on Music, because it's not my speciality. But in visual Art, there's no question that the Reformation was absolutely devastating, and English monarchs had to import their portrait painters from Catholic, continental Europe for the next 200 years, until the Royal Academy was finally established in 1768 -- see http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Stripping-Altars-Traditional-1400-1580/dp/0300108281 , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stripping_of_the_Altars , and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Academy_of_Arts . At the Kuntshaus in Zurich the audio guide informs one it has no extensive collections of medieval Art, just a few rooms, because all of it was burnt by Zwingli and his followers during the Reformation -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iconoclasm#Protestant_Reformation and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeldenstorm .

Even contemporary people who may only be "culturally Protestant" and no longer practicing, don't like hearing any of this. But it's a simple historical fact that many forms of Protestantism have been every bit as anti-Art and iconoclastic as contemporary Islamic fundamentalists. Indeed, sometimes even more so, in so far as extreme puritan Protestants have attacked all forms of artistic endeavor, including music. In Protestantism the sacred came to be exclusively identified with the verbal, with "the Word", with the conceptual, or at best, the auditory. Polyphonic music soon returned, but in Protestant areas of Europe such as England and Scandinavia it took centuries for visual Art to recover. And, let's be honest here, one can still detect a certain "anti-Visual", anti-Art prejudice amongst contemporary American evangelical Protestants.

However, New York is probably every bit as Catholic as Paris, and that's may be why New York has become such an important World Art Capital: because New York is a Jewish and Catholic city, not a Protestant one. Furthermore, the “verbalization” or "conceptualization" of visual Art began long before New York became an important Art center, and long before American universities started teaching the Fine Arts en masse. The “verbalization” of Art already began with Duchamp, Picabia, and Berlin/Zurich/Paris Dada. Marcel Duchamp (work), the first and most important conceptual artist, was French and at least born Catholic -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Duchamp , and as every Art Historian knows, modernism in Art just was a French, Catholic idea. “Paris-DADA” artists like Picabia and Duchamp – cultural Latins to the core – were producing conceptual and word Art in France 40 years before the stuff caught on in New York in the early 1960's. Indeed, Rauschenberg's and Jasper John's collages and installations were first billed as “neo-DADA”; the label “American Pop Art” was applied only retroactively. Rauschenberg in particular was deeply familiar with the prior Paris Dada of Duchamp, as well as the Berlin Dada collages of Hannah Hoch.


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20. Why has "Virtue Figuration" disappeared? Are saints, "holy men", and "spiritual heroes" culturally dead?


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Just recently another possible explanation occurred to me, a variation of the "Protestanization" hypothesis, but less diffuse, more concrete, a hypothesis that also includes the secularization of Catholic countries, and hence a hypothesis that may prove more plausible. Heroic figuration seems to flourish in cultures where the line between the sacred and profane, the ideal and the real, gods and humans, is a bit fuzzy, and where normatively speaking both sides of these dyads are balanced, accorded equal valence. Classical Graeco-Roman civilization, for instance, thought it perfectly possible for human beings to become gods, ergo the ancient concept of “apotheosis”, as symbolically captured in the relief-sculpture now found on a terrace immediately adjacent the Vatican gardens, "The Apotheosis of Antoninus Pius and Faustina" -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Column_of_Antoninus_Pius#Apotheosis_scene :





Hindus and Buddhists have thought the same, ergo the concept of “avatar” in Hinduism, and “bodhisattva” in Buddhism -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhisattva , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bodhisattvas . Although the barrier between gods and men becomes more definitive in Christianity, in Catholicism especially this barrier is not quite the canyon that it becomes in Islam, or quasi-Manichean forms of iconoclastic Protestantism. In others words, perhaps because Catholicism culturally and philosophically appropriated so much of the Mediterranean’s prior Hellenistic heritage, in Catholicism there emerges the concept of the “Saint” -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorification , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonization , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_early_Christian_saints , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_saints#Christian_saints_since_AD_450 , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_saints , https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_de_saints_catholiques , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_saints , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronological_list_of_saints_and_blesseds , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_symbolism , http://catholicsaints.info , http://www.catholic.org/saints/stindex.php , http://oca.org/saints/lives , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Russian_saints , and PDF .

In Hindu and Buddhist cultures, in addition to the concepts of "Avatar", "Saint", and "Boddhisattva", there’s the concept of the "Guru" or “Holy Man” -- see http://www.om-guru.com , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_saints , and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Hindu_gurus_and_saints .

I then wondered whether it would be at all possible for a culture to sustain a practice of figurative “Virtue Art”, if simultaneously a culture has no place any longer for Saints or Holy Men. If one believes that all human beings are spiritually equal – or if one believes that, this side of judgment day, it is spiritually presumptuous to imagine that we can reliably identify those who have lived lives closer to God, or those who became more enlightened – then one will find spiritually offensive the very concepts of “Saint”, “Holy Man”, “Guru”, or “Avatar”. Here, of course, I am talking about the Protestant temperament: a spiritual egalitarianism that has both positive and negative sides.

This line of thought occurred to me just recently when I realized that Italians grow up in a Saint-saturated landscape, and they learn a Saint-saturated history. For instance, for Italians a relatively minor Camaldolese saint like Peter Damian is both a concrete, tangible historical figure – in a word, a man – and simultaneously a spiritual ideal. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Damian , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fonte_Avellana , https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monastero_di_Fonte_Avellana , http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11764a.htm , and http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=780 . Whereas even Catholic Anglophones do not grow up with any even remotely similar consciousness of heroic models of spiritual virtue. In the ex-colonial Anglosphere, even if one is Catholic, saints tend to be imagined as distant, quasi-mythological figures. It doesn’t help matters that there are not that many of them: just 14 Canadian saints, only 10 American saints, and just one Australian saint -- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_Roman_Catholic_saints , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_saints_and_beatified_people , and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_saints . South of the American border there are many more Mexican saints, 35 of them -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mexican_saints . But surprisingly, there are only 4 Central American saints, only 18 South American saints, and of those, just 6 Brazilian saints -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Central_American_and_Caribbean_saints , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_South_American_saints , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Brazilian_saints .

Then compare these numbers to the thousands of Spanish, Italian, French, and German saints – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Roman_Catholic_saints_by_nationality , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Spanish_Roman_Catholic_saints , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Spanish_saints , https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categoría:Santos_de_España , http://www.santopedia.com/santos-nacidos-en/espana ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Italian_Roman_Catholic_saints , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Italian_saints , https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categoria:Santi_italiani , http://www.siticattolici.it/Santi_Beati_e_Testimoni/Santi/ , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:French_Roman_Catholic_saints , https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catégorie:Saint_catholique_français , http://saintsdefrance.canalblog.com/albums/diaporama_75_saints/index.html , http://cybercure.fr/grandes-figures/article/figures-de-saints-francais , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:German_Roman_Catholic_saints ,

In Ireland alone, a tiny country of 4.6 million people, some tallies count well over 300 saints – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Irish_Roman_Catholic_saints , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Medieval_Irish_saints , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_saints_of_Ireland , and http://www.catholic.org/saints/irish.php . And in Britain too there have been hundreds of saints, especially in Cornwall, Wales, and Northumbria -- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:English_Roman_Catholic_saints , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Anglo-Saxon_saints , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Cornish_saints , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Welsh_saints , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Welsh_Roman_Catholic_saints , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Northumbrian_saints .

The estimated total of Catholic and Greek Orthodox saints ranges from approximately 2,500 to over 10,000, but there is no definitive headcount -- see http://www.americancatholic.org/Messenger/Aug1997/wiseman.asp#F2 ,http://www.catholic.org/saints/faq.php , http://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2013/may/13/pope-francis-how-many-saints , and http://www.uscatholic.org/articles/201310/how-many-saints-are-there-28027 . So contrast this with the relative paucity of saints in ex-colonial Anglosphere and Latin American countries; factor in the comparative downgrading or complete absence of saints in various forms of Protestantism, and in Protestant countries in general; and factor in the secularization of France, Spain, and Italy in the 20th century; and then imagine just how different the cultural "mood" is today in the Western world, in contrast to the cultural mood of the Europe that produced great figurative art prior to 1800. Before 1800, and all the more so before 1700, it was relatively easy to paint human beings as spiritually noble, because such holiness was actually thought to exist. So following this more Weberian, “idealistic” line of historical explanation, perhaps heroic figuration disappears in European High Art because a Protestant, spiritually egalitarian form of philosophical anthropology becomes normative for the entire continent. A rejection of the very idea of spiritual hierarchy, and a rejection of the idea that the membrane between sacred and profane is somewhat porous, first begins in Protestant countries, in the Germanosphere and Anglosphere. But eventually it spreads and becomes a continent-wide sensibility. In short, if one imagines the sacred as a realm radically apart, a realm that has little to do with humans incarnate in this world, and if one imagines humans incarnate in this world as all equally damned, or equally undeserving of particular praise, then heroic “Virtue Art” becomes laughable.

Now I don’t know whether this explanation is any less deterministic than the Marxist, "the bourgeoisie did it" one. But at least it’s less obvious....:ylsmoke: .. And it does suggest that any further thinking about “Virtue Figuration” would need to examine the genesis and subsequent development of the Catholic and Greek Orthodox concepts of saint-hood, as well as their cults of Mary; the reasons for their theological rejection by Protestants; and contemporary feelings about the same. After all, so much of pre-modern religious Art just is the Art of Sainthood, and the Art of Madonna & Child.

Here is just a very preliminary reading list, books about the Catholic history of Sainthood and the cult of Mary; the metaphysical, theological, and sociological implications of the Protestant rejection of Sainthood and the cult of Mary; some books that address roughly equivalent Hindu and Buddhist concepts such as "Guru", "Holy Man", "Saint", "Boddhisattva", "Avatar", "Goddess", and "God"; and finally, some books that go deeply into sainthood, Mary, boddhisattvas, avatars, gods, and goddesses as expressed in Art. See http://www.catholic.com/quickquesti...-start-and-is-it-true-that-canonizations-are- , http://www.springfieldnewssun.com/n...-of-sainthood-in-the-catholic-church-1/nMp6Q/ , http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1849474,00.html , http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02364b.htm , http://atheism.about.com/od/catholicsaints/p/Saints.htm , http://www.amazon.com/The-Cult-Saints-Function-Christianity/dp/022617526X , http://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Saints-Lawrence-Cunningham/dp/1405114029/ref=pd_sim_14_1 , http://www.amazon.com/Sharing-Gods-Good-Company-Communion/dp/080286709X , http://www.amazon.com/Any-Friend-Gods-Mine-Explanation/dp/096426109X , http://www.amazon.com/The-Illustrated-World-Encyclopedia-Saints/dp/0754818543 , http://www.amazon.com/Angels-Saints-Biblical-Guide-Friendship/dp/0307590798 , http://www.amazon.com/The-Angels-Catholic-Teaching-Tradition/dp/0895555158 , http://www.amazon.com/My-Life-Saints-James-Martin/dp/0829426442 , http://www.amazon.com/Origins-Cult-Virgin-Chris-Maunder/dp/0860124568 , http://www.amazon.com/Mother-God-History-Virgin-Mary/dp/0300164327 ,http://www.amazon.com/Mary-Through-Centuries-History-Culture/dp/0300069510 , http://www.amazon.com/Cult-Virgin-Mary-Michael-Carroll/dp/0691028672 , http://www.amazon.com/Mary-Mother-Warrior-Virgin-Americas/dp/0292705956 , http://www.amazon.com/Truly-Our-Sister-Theology-Communion/dp/0826418279 , http://www.amazon.com/Behold-Your-Mother-Historical-Doctrines/dp/1938983807 , http://www.amazon.com/Why-Mary-Matters-Protestants-Virgin/dp/0692273190 , http://www.amazon.com/Primitive-Christian-Evidence-Scripture-Invocation-ebook/dp/B004SQUPUW , http://cdn.theologicalstudies.net/15/15.4/15.4.1.pdf , http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=611640 , http://www.patheos.com/blogs/naturalwonderers/catholics-protestants/ , http://www.amazon.com/Thank-You-Ok-...d=1455831017&sr=1-1&keywords=thank+you+and+oK , http://www.amazon.com/The-Empty-Mirror-Experiences-Monastery/dp/0312207743 , http://www.amazon.com/Taking-Path-Zen-Robert-Aitken/dp/0865470804 , http://www.amazon.com/Bodhisattva-Archetypes-Buddhist-Awakening-Expression/dp/0140195564 , http://www.amazon.com/Bodhisattva-Ideal-Wisdom-Compassion-Buddhism/dp/1899579206 , http://www.amazon.com/Bodhisattva-Compassion-Mystical-Tradition-Shambhala/dp/1590307356 , http://www.amazon.co.uk/A-Guide-Bodhisattvas-Meeting-Buddhas/dp/1899579842 , http://www.amazon.co.uk/Meeting-Buddhas-Bodhisattvas-Tantric-Deities , http://www.amazon.co.uk/Female-Deities-Buddhism-Concise-Guide/dp/1899579532 , http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_n...stripbooks&field-keywords=goddess+in+buddhism , http://www.amazon.co.uk/Handbook-Hindu-Gods-Goddesses-Saints/dp/8185067759 , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guru , http://www.amazon.ca/Gurus-Modern-Yoga-Mark-Singleton/dp/0199938725 , http://www.amazon.com/Hindu-Selves-Modern-World-Amritanandamayi/dp/041533988X , http://www.amazon.com/My-Guru-And-His-Disciple/dp/0816638640 , http://www.amazon.com/Guruji-Teachings-Hindu-Sunil-Reddy/dp/1462009190 , http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-009-8941-2_6 , http://www.jstor.org/stable/3269931?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents , http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11407-003-0002-7?LI=true , http://www.amazon.com/When-World-Becomes-Female-Goddess/dp/0253009561, http://www.amazon.com/Hindu-Goddesses-Beliefs-Practices-Religious , http://www.amazon.com/The-Rise-Goddess-Hindu-Tradition/dp/0791421120 , http://www.amazon.com/Revelry-Rivalry-Longing-Goddesses-Bengal/dp/023112919X , http://www.amazon.com/The-Graceful-Guru-Female-United/dp/0195145380 , http://www.amazon.com/Hindu-Goddesses-Feminine-Religious-Tradition/dp/8120803949 , http://www.amazon.com/Devi-Goddesses-Comparative-Studies-Religion/dp/0520200586 , http://www.amazon.com/Hindu-Goddesses-Religious-Tradition-Hermeneutics/dp/0520063392 , http://www.amazon.com/Awakening-Shakti-Transformative-Power-Goddesses/dp/160407891X , http://www.amazon.com/Divine-Mother-Blessed-Goddesses-Virgin/dp/0199738734 , http://www.amazon.com/The-Sword-Flute-Mythology-Hermeneutics/dp/0520224760 , http://www.amazon.com/Avatar-Incarnation-Lectures-Comparative-University/dp/0195203615 , http://www.amazon.com/Saints-Art-Guide-Imagery-Series/dp/0892367172 , http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/learn-about-art/saints , http://www.amazon.com/Sister-Wendy-Art-Saints-Beckett/dp/1616366974 , http://www.amazon.com/One-Hundred-Saints-Likenesses-Butlers/dp/0821220098 , http://www.amazon.com/Saints-A-Year-Faith-Art/dp/0810954990 , http://www.amazon.com/Catholic-Rubens-Saints-Martyrs/dp/1606062689 , http://www.amazon.com/The-Power-Glorification-Pretensions-Propaganda/dp/0271050799 , http://www.amazon.com/Saints-Art-Guide-Imagery-Series/dp/0892367172 , http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Bible-Stories-Myths/dp/0810984008 , http://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Figures-Guide-Imagery-Series/dp/089236727X ,http://www.amazon.com/Old-Testament-Figures-Guide-Imagery/dp/0892367458 , http://www.amazon.com/Angels-Demons-Art-Guide-Imagery/dp/0892368306 , http://www.amazon.com/Symbols-Allegories-Art-Guide-Imagery , http://www.amazon.com/Nature-Its-Symbols-Guide-Imagery/dp/0892367725 , http://www.amazon.com/Symbols-Power-Art-Guide-Imagery/dp/160606066X , http://www.amazon.com/The-History-Church-Guide-Imagery/dp/0892369361 , http://www.amazon.com/Love-Erotic-Art-Guide-Imagery/dp/1606060090 , http://www.amazon.com/Medicine-Art-A-Guide-Imagery/dp/1606060449 , http://www.amazon.com/Music-Art-A-Guide-Imagery/dp/0892369655 , http://www.amazon.com/Gardens-Art-A-Guide-Imagery/dp/0892368853 , http://www.amazon.com/Death-Resurrection-Art-Guide-Imagery/dp/0892369477 , http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Heroes-Guide-Imagery-Series/dp/0892367024 , http://www.amazon.com/Painting-Divine-Images-Mary-World/dp/193449142X , http://www.amazon.com/Mary-Images-Wheeler-ed-Marion/dp/0971007047 , http://www.amazon.com/Full-Grace-Encountering-Mary-Faith/dp/1400065852 , http://www.amazon.com/Mary-Western-Art-Timothy-Verdon/dp/097129819X , http://www.amazon.com/Sister-Wendy-Art-Mary-Beckett/dp/1616366931 , http://www.amazon.com/Mary-Mother-God-Icons-Scripture/dp/0764812114 , http://www.amazon.com/Tibetan-Iconography-Buddhas-Bodhisattvas-Deities , http://www.amazon.com/Buddhas-Bodhisattvas-Khadromas-Pilgrim-Transformative/dp/0973443987 , http://www.amazon.com/Guanyin-Masterpiece-Revealed-J-Larson/dp/0905209915 , http://www.amazon.com/Kuan-yin-transformation-Avalokitesìvara-Chün-fang-Yü/dp/023112029X , http://www.amazon.com/bodhisattva-goddess-compassion-Northampton-Massachusetts/dp/B0006E2JXQ , http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Print-Masterpieces-Indias-Mythological/dp/1608871096 , http://www.amazon.com/Form-Beauty-The-Krishna-Sharma/dp/1886069379 , http://www.amazon.com/Wonder-Age-Painters-1100-1900-Metropolitan/dp/0300175825 , http://www.amazon.com/In-World-Gods-Goddesses-Mystic/dp/1608875431 , http://www.amazon.com/Beauty-Power-Grace-Hindu-Goddesses/dp/1608873838 , http://www.amazon.com/Images-Indian-Goddesses-Madhu-Bazaz/dp/8170174163 , http://www.amazon.com/Devi-Goddess-Divinity-African-Oceanic/dp/3791321293 , http://www.amazon.com/Parvati-Goddess-Love-Harsha-Dehejia/dp/1890206121 , http://www.amazon.com/Goddesses-Mysteries-Feminine-Collected-Campbell/dp/1608681823 , http://www.amazon.com/Goddess-Role-Model-Scripture-Screen/dp/0195369904 , and http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mystics-Mas...nment-Judyth-Reichenberg-Ullman/dp/1573245070.

This explanation seems at least plausible, because today the only people that western Europeans and Americans seem willing to consider "holy", are Hindu gurus and/or Buddhist monks, i.e. people who most definitely did not grow up in the modern West. The irony here is that in their own countries, such "holy" Asian-Buddhist monks or teachers -- for instance, Japanese Buddhist monks and priests -- are also no longer taken all that seriously as "spiritual heroes". The Japanese are having just as much trouble viewing their Buddhist monks and priests as "spiritual heroes", as Americans and Europeans are having trouble viewing Christian clergy as "holy". Zen is dying in Japan, and this in itself suggests that modernism's anti-heroic and anti-spirtiual solvent may run very deep indeed. It may somehow be linked to other aspects of modernism like industrialization, secular prosperity, widespread literacy and advanced levels of education, the spread of scientific critical thinking, etc.


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